Text messages are all the rage. Well maybe not a rage but they were back in my day. I feel that as I am turning 30 this year, I can now say things like:

• When I was your age
• Kids aren’t what they used to be
• My knee hurts when it rains
• I walked uphill to school, both ways and it snowed, everyday. Sometimes twice.

The concept of texting isn’t earth shattering but when companies started to use their own services, cell phone companies started getting more and more relaxed. Apple really made the cell phone industry angry when the released their iMessages in 2011. Think of how a message service works. Think of how your own phone is storing those messages. On mine, each message is grouped by contact. I don’t just have a running list of messages. Instead it resembles this:

• Bob
  • Hey what’s up
    • Nothing
  • Want to grab some food
    • Nah. You smell
  • Whatever
• Thelma
  • LOL
    • OMG
  • ROFL
• Liam
  • Hey Mr. P want to hear a story
• 215-328-4560
  • Hey Mr. P. I didn’t finish my homework yesterday because bears attacked me.
• Dane
  • What is your favorite food
    • Ice cream
    • Or pizza
  • Me too. I <3 food

As you can see from the above, the list of messages is grouped to follow a dialog. Bottom is the most recent. Additionally, you can see that each person is a sublist of my messages. Finally, you can see that students who have my number that text me never get a response.

Your goal this week will to be make a somewhat archaic version of an early SMS system. Looking for a challenge? Encrypt all messages with your own proprietary algorithm.